Apimondia Newsletter 2017, N° 6
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
2017 APIMONDIA NEWSLETTER N°6 INDEXf kabu Page 2 Editorial Philip McCabe (Ireland) Page 6 45th APIMONDIA | International Apicultural Congress Pag 9 Apimondia Regional Commission for Oceania. By Jodie Goldsworthy (Australia) Page 12 Apimondia Regional Commission for Asia. By Dr. Cleofas Rodriguez Cervancia (Philippines) Page 14 Chronicle from South America. Argentine Society of Beekeepers By Lucas Martínez - Pedro Kaufmann (Argentina) Page 16 The Ethiopian Apiculture Board (EAB) Page 20 The International Honey Market: still searching for a new balance. By Norberto García (Argentina) - Ron Phipps (USA). PH: Apimondia President welcomes HSH Prince Albert 11 of Monaco to his home town of Drogheda as keynote speaker to “Forum on Biodiversity.” =Åêáëí áå~Kã~í ÉÉëÅì ] ~éáÅçä~KÉì APIMONDIA NEWSLETTER EDITORIAL Count down is now underway for our next Congress in Istanbul. It seems such a short time since we met in Daejong, South Korea. One thing that has happened and continues to be of major interest is that of the decline of our beloved honeybee, although we now have some countries stating that the losses are not as great as had been reported in the past. Is it possible that we are now seeing a change and that there is an increase in honeybee numbers? I have to say I’m not so sure that this is the case – on my travels I hear of extensive losses of bee families in many countries and it seems the jury is still out on what the major contributing factors are but varroa is probably top of the list followed by the over, or incorrect, use of certain chemicals but in particular the neonicotinoids. Much debate and discussions take place on a regular basis in the European Parliament and recently I was reading with great interest an Explanatory Statement from Mr. Norbert Erdős, MEP from Hungary. I should first of all clarify that there are many of our MEP’s who are working extremely hard in the interest of Beekeeping but I must mention two in particular, Mr. Erdós and Ms Mairead McGuinness, MEP from Ireland. On the 23rd of June I had the honour of hosting HSH Prince Albert of Monaco in my home town of Drogheda here in Ireland and this was due to hard work by Ms McGuinness for all of us in the EU Parliament. HSH Prince Albert with pupils and teachers from Aston Educate Together school and their project. APIMONDIA NEWS 2 Now back to the Explanatory Note mentioned above, Mr Erdós was submitting a report to the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development which took place on Wednesday 6th September 2017 where his main headings were; The significance of beekeeping; EU support for beekeeping; Bee health issues; Combating honey counterfeiting effectively; Promoting honey as a healthy foodstuff in public education; Encouraging honey consumption and promoting honey; His Explanatory Statement was as follows; The beekeeping sector is an integral part of European agriculture, providing HSH Prince Albert being introduced to Ms over 500 000 EU citizens with their main income or additional earnings. The Mairead McGuinness MEP. importance of the sector is much greater than we might judge from the amount of its contribution to the gross production value of the economy, as 84% of plant species and 76% of Europe’s food production depend on pollination by bees, so that the economic value thus produced – estimated at EUR 14.2 billion annually in the EU – exceeds the value of the honey produced by a long way. The significance of honey in maintaining the ecological balance and biological diversity is also plain to see. I think the importance of pollination is insufficiently appreciated and taken for granted in the EU, whereas EUR 2 billion is spent annually in the US on artificial pollination. Beekeeping and beekeepers must therefore be at the heart of the common agricultural policy. Future agricultural policy must raise the profile and financing of beekeeping above its current level. The situation of beekeepers active in the EU today is far from easy, with many factors making their lives difficult. 1. The biggest problem by far is the spread of fake honey in the internal market, which is responsible for the purchase price of honey falling to half its 2014 value by the end of 2016, primarily in the major honey-producing countries such as Romania, Bulgaria, Spain, Portugal, France, Croatia and Hungary. This is putting Europe’s beekeepers in a hopeless position. Honey is the third most counterfeited product in the world, meaning that we must fight not only to protect the EU’s beekeepers but also for reasons of consumer protection and people’s health. Counterfeiting affects almost all the honey imported into the EU and particularly products originating in China. According to the statistics, China produces 450 000 tonnes of honey annually, which is more than the world’s largest producers – the EU, Argentina, Mexico, the US and Canada – combined. Experts say that such a quantity simply cannot be the result of beekeeping activity. Pursuant to an initiative formulated at Hungary’s request at the December 2015 meeting of the Agriculture and Fisheries Council, the Commission ordered the centralised testing of honey. This was done by the Joint Research Centre, which found, among other things, that 20% of the samples taken at the EU’s external border and at importers’ premises were fake honey. From a health point of view, it is particularly worrying that, in the view of the experts, China’s honey-producers resolved the 2002 chloramphenicol problem not by complying with the rules but by using resin filters; since such ‘honey’, however, contains nothing whatsoever of biological value, it should be called not honey but a kind of syrup. Some fraudulent honey packagers and traders improve these substances by mixing them with high-quality European honey, applying the ‘blend of EU and non-EU honeys’ label to the result, as permitted by Directive 2001/110/EC; this is about as informative for consumers as would be a label reading ‘honey which does not originate from Mars’ – in other words, not at all. In order satisfactorily to resolve this unsustainable situation, I expect the Member States and the Commission to force honey-producers in non-EU countries who use dishonest methods (primarily certain Chinese producers) and EU packagers and traders who wilfully mix adulterated, imported honey with high-quality European honey to comply with the law; I would particularly recommend developing analytical laboratory methods which can filter out the more sophisticated forgeries (e.g. nuclear magnetic resonance testing), making honey packaging plants which also process imported honey subject to EU food safety monitoring (853/2004/EC) and ensuring that honey is identifiable from the moment it leaves the hive and to be classifiable according to its plant origin. I would also like to see the characteristics of monofloral honeys to be determined at EU level, honey which is clearly fake to be placed on the RASFF list, resin filtering technology to be banned and honey arriving at the EU’s external border from non-EU countries to be officially batch-sampled and the samples to be tested. Crucial to resolving the situation would be for the vague and meaningless ‘blend of EC and non-EC honeys’ to be replaced by an indication on the label of exactly which country or countries the honeys used in the final products come from and for these to be listed in the order which corresponds to the proportions used in the final product. 2. In addition, a number of animal diseases cause serious problems for beekeepers. Invasive alien species such as the Varroa destructor, the small hive beetle (Aethina tumida), the Asian hornet and the American foulbrood are causing widespread destruction to the European bee population and serious harm to beekeepers, a situation which has led to many producers going bankrupt. The Varroa destructor has not yet been overcome, as there are no drugs which will effectively destroy the parasite and research and development in this area is inadequate. In addition, the results of the Member State / regional monitoring tests assessing the health situation of bees conceal a lot of important information from the other Member States, the Commission and the relevant EU agencies, such as the European Food Safety Authority. I would therefore suggest that the Member States share the results of monitoring tests with each other and with the Commission. As a way of boosting drug research and development, I call on the Commission to involve in the research all relevant drug producers and to set up a common IT platform to share best solutions and drugs with interested parties. Finally, beekeepers, agricultural producers and environmentalists also expect there to be a clear scientific consensus in the EU on all substances and other factors which are a danger to bees’ health. I therefore propose that the European Food Safety Authority be asked to carry out research, according to a clearly-determined schedule and together with the other EU agencies concerned (e.g. the European Chemicals Agency), into all substances and other factors which endanger bee health. Prince Albert meets Philip’s Grandsons 3. EU support for beekeepers must also be revised. While the bee population in the EU increased by 47.8% between 2004 and 2016, the budget of the national beekeeping programmes rose by just 12%, from EUR 32 to 36 million a year. This is a grand total of 3 thousandths of the CAP budget! The EU budget for these programme must therefore be increased by 47.8%, which translates as EUR 47 million annually. This can easily be accommodated. Thought should also be given to integrating a new, direct beekeeping subsidy, based on colony numbers, into agricultural policy post-2020.